


Paraíso

by paperlesscrown



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017) RPF
Genre: Archaeologist!Cole, Aztec references, Cuixmala, F/M, Mexico, References to Hawaii, Sprousehart, cole's POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 05:34:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14418759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperlesscrown/pseuds/paperlesscrown
Summary: The Aztecs believed in thirteen heavens. Cole wasn't so sure about that. But then again, he had Lili - his own little fragment of paradise.A story of two Mexicos, and the infinities in between.





	Paraíso

**Author's Note:**

> The concept of the thirteen heavens originated in Aztec mythology, through the Nahua people. In this belief, they imagined heaven as being constructed and separated into thirteen different dimensions, each with a distinct name.
> 
> The thirteen sections of this fic are named after each of those thirteen heavens, with some slight adaptations. 
> 
> As always, this fic is based on real-life events (the Riverdale Mexico trip, Hawaii, Cuixmala, among others), but is purely fictional and speculative. It was not intended to upset or offend.

...

 

 **paraíso** (Galician, Portuguese, Spanish)

 _paradise_ (n.)

1\. (in some religions) heaven as the ultimate abode of the just;

2\. an ideal or idyllic place or state.

 

...

 

**_i. here where the clouds are in motion_ **

The Aztecs believed that there were thirteen heavens - thirteen planes of the afterlife, thirteen levels of nirvana.

At least that’s what I remembered from studying Mesoamerican mythology at Gallatin during my final semester before graduation. I didn’t put much stock into the idea at the time. We all tend to study mythology with a sense of distance and cynicism, seeing it as something that exists not in a tangible reality but in a past that is far too removed for belief.

Dylan, of course, would dispute this. As a practicing heathen, he’d say that mythology is a gateway to truth, that all religion is simply an echo of the same old ancient story.

Obviously, I’m the skeptic twin.

But as the cabin lights dimmed on our flight to Mexico, highlighting the vibrant, billowing white of the clouds outside, you leaned over and tucked your head right under my chin, and I caught the scent of your hair. Immediately I was transported to a memory from the night before - the sweat on your neck, your cheek on my pillow, your hand resting on the rise and fall of my abdomen as I breathed in and out.

Thirteen heavens? Sure.

I had one of them right here.

Maybe I’m a believer, after all.

...

**_ii. here where the stars move_ **

We stepped out into the Arrivals lounge and were greeted by a small crowd of fans and a few handmade signs. _“WELCOME TO THE STARS OF RIVERDALE,”_ one of them read, bold red letters against a yellow background, held by a group of beaming girls who excitedly reached out to you for a hug.

You seemed genuinely surprised to see them, as if forgetting the fact that we were in the country on a promotional tour for the show and that you’d be pursued and wanted and fawned over. They cried as they embraced you, reduced to tears by your attention and overwhelmed by your presence.

(I was all too tempted to march over and say to them, “I get it. I know the feeling. I lose my bearings when I touch her, too.”)

Your smile was wide-eyed and incredulous and beautiful. You spoke to them with kindness, but more importantly, you listened intently, fixing your gaze on them, mindful that they considered you otherworldly and inaccessible. I think I loved you even more then - your desire to be present, your unrelenting warmth - and with every ounce of self-control I resisted the urge to take your luggage, to grab your hand and to whisper in your ear:

_“Let’s run away, just you and me.”_

_..._

 

**_iii. to where the sun travels_ **

The hotel room that you shared with Mads faced full west. You sent me a picture of the sunset just as I finished unpacking. _Check out the view,_ the caption read.

 _Nice,_ I texted back. _Also. You still haven’t sent me the most important information about this room._

 _The evacuation plan?_ you replied, with a smiley face.

But I wasn’t in the mood to be coy. _Floor and room number???_

You: _Cole, we discussed this. You’re not sneaking in._

Me: _Discussed, sure. But I didn’t necessarily agree to it._

You: _Mads would be livid._

Me: _Did you mean… Mads... would... be…_

You: _DON’T DO IT_

Me: ... _MAD?_

You: _Please... rethink your life and your choices. That joke was the literal worst._

Me: _I will if you give me your room number._

You: …

Me: _Otherwise it’s bad jokes all night, baby._

You: _Fuck off. I’m calling your bluff._

Me: _You know I would. Dylan’s bored and he’s on standby. We have a shit ton of em._

You: _FOURTH FLOOR 4507, god_

Me: _Thank you._

I smiled to myself as I wrote the number down on the hotel room notepad next to my bed. I texted you again, just to push your buttons. _So not even one joke?_

You: _HARD PASS_

_..._

 

**_iv. the way of Venus_ **

But that night, despite all jokes and protestations, you opened the door anyway. Your face was bare and freshly scrubbed, your hair still slightly wet from having showered.

I leaned forward, looking into the room. “Mads here?”

“No,” you whispered, smiling. “She’s out with--”

But all I heard was “no”, and I was over the threshold before you even finished your sentence. I seized you by the waist, my mouth urgent against yours, and kicked the door shut behind me.

 

...

 

**_v. where the comets are_ **

“Alright, guys, here’s one,” Cami announced, setting her glass down. “Favourite underrated Gwyneth Paltrow film. Go.”

The whole gang was sitting around having dinner - well, milling around after dinner, anyway. We’d consumed about six jugs of sangria between us, and we were all flushed and lethargic from the alcohol.

KJ was quick off the bat. “Hey, I reckon you can’t go past _Duets._ ” The entire table groaned. “What? It had ‘Cruising’ in it! Bunch of haters, bro. As if you could go wrong with a karaoke movie.”

“You can go _so_ many ways wrong with a karaoke movie,” muttered Ashleigh. We all laughed.

“Okay, what about _Sylvia?”_ Mads suggested. Also a resounding no _._

“I’m sorry, but Sylvia Plath can never be played by _anyone_ ,” Cami said. “Ever. Not even by Gwyneth. Actually, _especially_ not by Gwyneth ‘Goop’ Paltrow. Sylvia would be horrified. She’s like, the anti-housewife.”

Mads conceded the point while the table nodded and murmured in agreement. Cami turned to you. “Lils?”

Everyone looked your way. I took the opportunity to wink at you, still high from the night before - the frenzy induced by our restricted time frame, the aphrodisiac of stealth and secrecy. You stifled a giggle as Mads cleared her throat and shot me a warning look. Apparently I hadn’t been as subtle as I thought.

You thought about it for a while before clapping your hands, the way you do when you happened upon a brilliant idea. “Okay. What about _Sliding Doors?_ ” you offered.

The group exploded in mutual agreement - everyone, that is, except for KJ, who was still flying his lone flag for _Duets_ (“Guys, did you know that Captain Holt from _Brooklyn 99_ sings in it? I’m just saying”).

“You think that actually happens, though?” Ash pondered thoughtfully, once the initial buzz of discussion died down. “Like, do we all just have these... alternative realities walking around from all the choices we could have made, but didn’t?”

It was drunken chatter, and I was too out of it to take part, but it triggered a deluge of thought which lasted all through the night. That’s how I found myself knocking on your door the next morning, wondering if you wanted to come with me to the National Museum of Anthropology.

“Sure,” you said, yawning. “Couldn’t you have just texted me, though?”

I shrugged. That made sense, but to tell the truth, I’d rolled out of bed feeling a little out of sorts. I couldn’t put my finger on it that morning, but I needed to see you the moment I woke up.

We headed out together, grateful for the opportunity to get away from everyone, even for a little while. The moment we stepped into the hallowed space of the museum, something in me clicked into place. There, surrounded by clay bowls and old manuscripts and ancient statues, I felt the remnants of my old self flicker into life - the kid who got excited over cartography and obsessive over carbon dating.

We walked through the exhibits, and I pointed out a couple of artifacts that I had researched for case studies in college. The Olmec Wrestler. A Mayan gravestone from Jonutla. Finally, we came to it - the Aztec stone calendar, the museum’s most famous treasure. We slowed to a stop and stood in front of the gigantic sculpture, awed by its breadth and sheer scale.

“What was it used for?” you whispered.

“There’s several debates around it,” I said. “Nothing’s really certain. What we know for sure, though, is… well, you see those four squares around the circle in the middle?”

“Yep?”

“Those squares represent four suns, or four eras, that the Aztecs believed the earth had passed through. They thought of time as cyclical rather than linear, which is why they had no issues with laying out all four eras next to each other. The eras weren’t broken pieces of the same line; they existed as parallels.”

You smiled. “So sort of like an Aztec edition of _Sliding Doors_?”

“Sort of, yeah.” I laughed. “Aztec _Sliding Doors._ I never thought of it that way.”

You slipped under my arm, your head leaning on my shoulder as we both looked up at the artifact. As I tightened my grip on your shoulder, your line still echoing in my head, it suddenly made sense to me why I wanted to go to the museum that morning, and why it was so important to have you there with me.

The museum was the future I could have had - the job in archaeology, all the security and anonymity that came with it. It was symbolic of the world that I abandoned in order to embark on the very thing I’d been running away from.

Acting was something that I always intended on getting back into, but not that soon after graduating. In fact, so unconvinced was I of the timing for it that I gave the entire thing a week: if nothing came through in terms of auditions and opportunities, I was going to take that as a sign to move on, keep doing my thing, bag rocks for a living. As fate would have it, though, the script for _Riverdale_ fell into my lap within that tiny sliver of time.

And it was the sliding door that led me to you.

I don’t know what constellations conspired in bringing us together, or what whim of the cosmos knocked my path into yours. But the incredible reality of you, of _us,_ makes me tremble at what could have been, and what I could have lost.

So, on that day in the museum, I brought you into the world I left behind, hoping to close that door for the very last time.

Or perhaps, in some subconscious way, to acknowledge the fact that I could hardly bear any reality - alternative or otherwise - without you in it.

 

...

 

**_vi. where the night comes and spreads_ **

“Just stay,” you said, nudging me with your knee as I put my shirt back on.

I paused and looked at you. “What about Mads?”

You shrugged. “Well, It’s not like she doesn’t know. Besides, Mads just didn’t want you here because she doesn’t want our room to smell like boys.”

“Like _men,_ you mean.”

“Her words, not mine.” I heard the sheets rustle in the dark and felt your arms wrap around my waist, and I knew then and there that I was done for. “Stay? Please?”

I sighed melodramatically. “You’re making this _really_ tough for me, you know,” I said, grinning as I lay back down and closed my body in over yours.

“Yes, obviously,” you murmured back.

We fell into comfortable silence, the only noise in the room the hum of the air conditioner and the muffled din of Mexico’s late-night traffic outside.

“Cole?”

“Mmm?”

“Thank you for taking me to the museum today.”

I kissed the hallowed space between your shoulder blades. “You’re welcome.”

“You think we’ll come back here one day? Mexico?”

“You and me? I mean, probably not to Mexico City.”

“Nah, probably not,” you concurred, yawning. Your voice was getting slower, sleepier. “Maybe somewhere quieter, along the coastline.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Like a deserted beach somewhere.”

“Yeah. That would be nice.”

“With a personal butler to bring me margaritas.”

“Well, obviously. And horses. So you and I could remake the cover of a trashy romance novel.”

You laughed. “Deserted beach, margaritas, horses, trashy romance novel photo shoot. Sounds like a plan.”

“It does,” I replied, nuzzling my face into your hair, feeling sleep start to overtake me. “I’ll meet you there in a year’s time then. Deal?”

“Deal.”

 

...

 

**_vii. where the sun shows its face at dawn_ **

The beach in Cuixmala, for some strange reason, had the best WiFi signal throughout the resort. That’s where I found myself on the last night of our Vogue shoot. The bonfire from the wrap dinner was starting to die down, its embers glowing faintly underneath a slowly diminishing fire. Most of the crew and the models had retreated to their rooms, and all that remained behind were me and one of the stylists, who was dozing off underneath a giant poncho, his hand still clutching an empty wine bottle. He looked so peaceful in his sleep that no-one had the heart to wake him up.

I checked the time before attempting to FaceTime you again. It was 2.45 am in LA, and while I knew that you were probably asleep, I still wanted to give it a shot. _Come on, Lili,_ I pleaded silently. _Pick up._

The call died into nothing, and I swore as I checked my battery - 5%. There was no point in trying. With a groan, I tossed my phone into the sand.

We’d barely spoken that weekend, our individual pursuits keeping us both occupied. Most days, we liked it that way - that we empowered and released each other into our passions, and that you and I had other worlds to conquer, away from each other. But while being busy on the shoot kept me mostly ignorant of your absence, here on the beach, alone with the waves, it was everything I knew and felt and tasted on my tongue.

It seemed unfair, being on that wide, pristine stretch of shoreline without you. No, scratch that - it wasn’t unfair; it was a glitch in the system, an error in the mainframe that meant that I couldn’t process beauty the way I normally would. Maybe because I couldn’t gauge it. Maybe because you’re my measure for beauty now.

I sat up off the sand, picked my phone up to check on the time. Close to 5. Sunrise in an hour or two.

I have this quirk, and I’m sure I’ve told you about it: whenever I’m anyplace alone - which, nowadays, is rare - and I’d somehow managed to stretch my waking hours across the night, I tried to catch the sunrise. I always thought it a shame that this miracle of colour and light happened every single day with barely a soul to catch it. So I made a consistent effort at it. I’d seen the sun rise off a skyscraper horizon in New York, seen its rays illuminating the ruins of Rome, witnessed it breaking through the thick fog that rolled onto the grassy hills of Tarnovo.

But I hadn’t seen it in a while - at least, not alone.

Not since you.

We’d caught it a few times together - the last time by accident in Kauai, on New Year’s Day, when you saw the first murky spill of light seeping through the curtain of our hotel room. We had stayed up all night, pouring each other wine, our conversations getting louder and lewder by the hour, your drunken dance moves nearly filling up an entire reel of film on the cheap disposable camera I bought to play around with. We were at that lull where sleep had finally been rendered unnecessary and water had diluted the alcohol in our systems and all that was left was a vague, balmy haze.

“Cole,” you mumbled, your head in my lap, my hand in your hair. “Is that… is that sunlight? What time is it?”

“Lemme check,” I replied, my speech still a little slurred. “Fuck. It’s 6.15 in the morning.”

You laughed. “Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously.”

“Shit. Where’d all that time go?”

I rubbed my eyes. “No idea.”

“Well...” You stretched out and yawned. “We can’t sleep now.”

“We need to sleep at _some_ point, Lili.”

“Obviously,” you replied. “But _now_ , I mean. Right now. Let’s do something.”

I smiled at your sudden burst of energy. At least you weren’t hungover. “Alright. What do you have in mind?”

A few minutes later, we found ourselves on the beach in front of the hotel, sharing the blanket we’d pulled off our bed, your feet burrowing into the sand and digging into mine (somehow, your feet were always cold. It was oddly endearing). I put my arm around you and drew you closer.

“First sunrise of the year,” you noted, smiling.

“Yeah,” I replied. We fell into silence. There was really nothing else to say. Here I was at the beginning of another year with you, and it was good and perfect and sublime, and no other words were needed.

You turned to look at me before nudging my cheek with your nose. “Hey. I love you.”

I was wrong. _That_ was one thing I’d gladly say, on repeat, indefinitely. “I love you, too.”

I said it then, on the shores of Kauai, and it echoed in my mind here, on the shores of Cuixmala, as light began to gather on the fringes of the sky. Sunrise was close. I could stay and watch, or…

_No._

I grabbed my phone off the sand and got up to walk back to the hotel - not to my room, but to the lobby. To check room availabilities for the rest of the year.

I’m not watching another sunrise without you.

 

...

 

**_viii. in the place of darkness_ **

“Lili?” I called out into the dimmed apartment.

Silence. I dropped my duffel bag to the ground and hung my keys on the hook. I should’ve known you’d be asleep. My plane was delayed for a few hours, which meant that the optimistic _“I’ll see you for dinner”_ turned into an imploring _“Please stay up so I can see you when I get home.”_

I treaded carefully in the dark. You had a habit of leaving your shoes lying around, and more than once I’d stumbled over them. One time, I tripped and fell into the couch, where you were huddled under a blanket and sleeping, waiting for me. You thought I was an intruder, screamed and punched me in the gut. We laugh about it to this day.

I walked into the bedroom, and there you were, the outside lights illuminating your form in the otherwise pitch-black of the room - lying on top of the still-made bed, dressed in your casual clothes, clutching your phone against your cheek. Apparently, you were still hoping we’d head out for dinner. My heart clenched at the sight.

Quietly, I snuck in behind you, curling my arm over your waist, closing my eyes. I wanted to fall asleep then and there. But I should’ve known that you’d wake up. You were always a light sleeper.

“Cole?” you mumbled sleepily.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey. You’re home.”

“Yeah,” I replied, inhaling your scent. “I am.”

You turned around and kissed me, shifted so you were snuggled right into my chest. “What time’d you get back?”

“Just now. I’m sorry we couldn’t head out.” Just then, I sensed an opportunity to spring my surprise on you. “Uh, have you eaten, though? Are you still hungry?”

“No. And yes, I’m still hungry. Pizza?”

I smiled to myself. “Actually… I was kinda thinking Mexican.”

You didn’t miss a beat. “Mexican? I don’t think that place down the road is still open at this time, babe.”

“Shit,” I said, my disappointment pitch-perfect (what can I say? I’m an actor, after all). “Well, we’ll have to wait until April then.”

Your eyes fluttered open. “April? Why?”

“I mean, if we’re gonna have Mexican food, we might as well go authentic, right?”

You sat up in bed and looked down at me. “Cole, what in the world…? What are you talking about?”

I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the Cuixmala booking receipt. “Deserted beach, margaritas, horses, trashy romance novel photo shoot,” I said, alluding to the deal we made in Mexico City. “Remember? It’s been a year. Let’s do it.”

You stared at me, your eyes welling up involuntarily. “Are you… are you serious?”

“A Sprouse always pays his debts,” I said, grinning and hoping you’d appreciate my effort at making a _Game of Thrones_ reference. “Or, you know, this particular Sprouse just wants you all to himself after Paris.”

You took the receipt from me, and after staring at it disbelievingly for all of ten seconds, threw it over my shoulder and onto the ground.

“Hey, we actually need tha--”

But your mouth found mine all too easily and quickly shut me up. We tumbled over together into the darkness, and into bliss.

 

...

 

**_ix. white_ **

Did I expect to be woken up on our second day in Cuixmala by the sound of running water and a dull, repetitive thud coming from the bathroom?

No. I did not.

I looked to my left - the space you normally occupied was empty. In the days leading up to our trip, I’d envisioned us waking up everyday in our cavernous suite, watching the day break, ringing for room service, eating breakfast in bed and barely moving a muscle.

Yet there I was, rolling out of bed in search of you. Groaning, I grabbed my shirt off the floor and walked in the direction of the bathroom.

The scene should have been comedic. You were pulling at the stubborn lock of the large, elaborate lattice windows above the bathtub, trying to wrench them open. Your face was red and flushed from the struggle, and your legs were half-dipped into the running water in the tub. I would have laughed, were I not more conscious of the bigger picture.

You were wearing a long, white dress that you had bunched at the top of your thighs to keep the hem out of the water. It left… _little_ to the imagination, but enough to keep the eye intrigued and wondering at what lay beneath. Your hair, which was normally down and loose, was tied up - the smallest tendrils escaping loose, curling into the delicate skin of your neck. The tableau was finished by the soft glow of morning light, which painted you like a Botticelli angel.

You noticed me frozen in the doorway. “Oh, good, you’re up,” you said nonchalantly. The plainness of it startled me - were angels supposed to speak? “Can you help me with this?”

I ignored your question. “Stay there,” I commanded.

I was almost reckless in the speed with which I pulled my camera out of my bag. When I returned to the bathroom, your face was fixed in an expression of confusion.

“Really?” you said. “Photos? Right now, in the _bathroom?”_

“Just... trust me, okay?” I said. “When I’m done, I’ll get that window opened.”

You raised an eyebrow at me.

“And yes, I will join you in the bath after.”

You laughed and gave me a self-satisfied smirk before curling your body into the frame of the window. Immediately, we fell into the now-automatic rhythm of our shoots together - me shooting multiple frames at a time, you averting your gaze from me, knowing full well how I worked, how I liked it when my photos bore the minimum evidence of a camera’s presence.

Later, when I finished editing the photos, you’d tell me that you had no idea how I did that - how I managed to create something beautiful and incandescent out of something as inane as you struggling with a stubborn lock on a bathroom window.

I didn’t really know how to reply to that. I honestly thought that you’d know by now.

It doesn’t matter where you are, Lili. You carry beauty and transcendence with you wherever you go.

 

...

 

**_x. yellow_ **

The days were short, but they were golden, full of the yellow brightness of joy.

We spent our hours in a dreamlike idyll. As promised, there was a deserted beach, margaritas and yes, even horses at one point. As for a trashy romance novel photo shoot - well, that was, shall we say, _debatable._ I mean, first off, what are these novels’ ratings? Mature? Explicit? Then… no comment.

We walked hand in hand throughout the massive estate, marvelling at the local wildlife, exploring the different nooks and crannies of the building, finding different places to shoot (and, okay, to make out). We lay side by side on the beach, you reading Lang Leav, me reading Malcolm Gladwell. In the morning, we sat out on our balcony, eating breakfast, talking about everything and anything under the sun. Then, at night, we lay spent in each other’s arms.

If someone were to ask me what was so special about those few days that we had, cloistered away from the rest of the world, I couldn’t really pinpoint a reason. Nothing of true note happened. Just… our everyday rhythm, I guess (in paradise, I’ll concede).

But see, that’s the thing. The monotony of us trumps every thrill I’ve ever known.

 

...

 

**_xi. red_ **

_“This_ is your favourite photo?” you asked, laughing. “Cole, I’m barely in it.”

We were sitting down over dinner, and you were leaning over to look at my camera as I browsed through the photos we had taken during the day. I’d stopped at one of you just out of the frame - your shadow a silhouette against the sun, the hem of your red skirt flapping in the breeze.

“Look, I know,” I said, trying to appease you. “And anyway, I didn’t say it was my favourite. It’s _one of_ my favourites.”

“Oh, alright, but why?”

I thought about it for a moment. Why was I so drawn to it?

“It’s… symbolic,” I replied. “It’s a metaphor.”

You rolled your eyes and sipped your wine. “Oh, here we go. This oughta be good.”

I put my arm around your neck, drawing you close enough to kiss. “Do you want to hear this or not?”

“I’m sorry.” You pecked me playfully on the lips. “Go ahead.”

I smiled at you, pausing for a moment to gather my thoughts. I brought up the photo on my camera again. “Okay. What does the viewer see here?”

“Um...” You scanned over the picture. “White doors. A small tree. An ochre room. My shadow. A little bit of my skirt coming from around the corner.”

“Right,” I said. “Your shadow, your skirt - they’re pieces of you, obviously. But they’re not _you._ ”

I fixed my gaze on the picture. I knew you’d be making those absurdly beautiful doe eyes at me, and I didn’t want to be distracted from the point I was trying to make.

“I could put up a dozen images of you - from Antelope Valley, Squamish, San Francisco, Whistler, whatever. Photographs that will give people some indication, some glimpse into who you are, what you signify for me. But this image… it’s different. It’s a reminder, I guess. To the viewer.”

You put your hand on mine. “Of what?”

I gave up resisting. I raised my eyes to yours, made sure that you heard me loud and clear.

“That they’re looking at you from behind a lens, a filter. That they’re separated from you by the veneer of film.” I interlaced my fingers with yours. “But me? I get to put my camera down.” I raised your knuckles to my lips. “I get to turn around that corner, and walk right up to where you’re standing in the sunlight. See you beyond the frame, so to speak.”

You laughed. “Yes, along with the jet lagged eyes and the acne breakouts and the roots that desperately need a touch-up.”

“Yeah. I do,” I said, but I wasn’t laughing. “And still - it's infinitely better than any photograph I could ever take.”

Your laughter died away. “Really?”

“Of course. Because it’s you, Lili.”

Your breath hitched as I leaned in to kiss you. Just before our lips met, I added, “It’s you, and it’s _real_.”

 

...

 

**_xii. where there is rebirth and eternity_ **

How does one quantify infinity?

We’re looking up at the sky on our last night on Cuixmala, and I remember that, at least in scientific terms, infinity is a measure of both space and time, and that the stars we saw weren’t just billions of miles but also light-years away. The Aztecs, who once lived and thrived on the land we stood on, would’ve said that it was measured in numbers - thirteen, to be precise. Dylan would’ve said that it was measured in souls - the five that Ásatrú devotees (such as himself) believed each person possessed.

But what about me? How did I measure it?

“Tell me more about the stars,” you whispered in my ear before leaning your head expectantly on my shoulder, waiting for me to speak. I looked up and mapped out the constellations for you - Perseus, Andromeda, Ursa Minor - then looked at you and realised that I had my own.

I understand now, as I’ve understood for more than a year - I measure infinity in a person.

 

...

 

**_xiii. the place of two_ **

When I asked you if you wanted me to bring you something home from my _Vogue_ shoot, you only asked for one thing: a bracelet to replace the one you’d lost at Coachella.

You had bought it from a flea market stall in Mexico City, right after we came out of the museum. You wanted to preserve the memory, you said. “Of what?” I asked, as you handed it over to me to tie on.

“Of our museum date,” you replied simply. “Of being in Mexico with you.”

You were close to tears when you lost it while dancing to Two Door Cinema Club, ecstatic when I brought another one back home to Vancouver. And of course, you wore it all throughout our Cuixmala trip as well.

I was waiting for you near the souvenir kiosk at the airport in Puerto Vallarta when I spotted another one - a simple cuff, delicately carved, wrought in sterling silver, a startling contrast to the brightly-coloured threads of the one you wore. I bought it on the spot and stashed it into my carry-on, wanting to surprise you with it on the airplane. Maybe I’d slip it on while you were asleep so that you’d wake up to it - our two Mexicos, side by side, adorning your wrist.

When you came out of the bathroom, you were beaming. I asked you why.

“Oh, I just… I met this incredible woman while I was washing my hands in there, and she was telling me all about this trip she’s on, basically going through Mexico altitude by altitude, starting in Baja California, then ending with a hike up Citlaltépetl. It sounded amazing.”

I nodded, impressed. “Sounds epic.”

“It does, right?” You looked at me. “You think we’ll be able to do that one day?”

“What? Hike up the highest mountain in Mexico?”

You laughed. “Well, yes, that… but like, an extended trip. An all-out adventure.”

As you spoke, you brushed a strand of hair out of your eyes, and I spied the woven bracelet on your wrist - the one that came to symbolise our first Mexico trip. I thought then of the cuff in my bag, a gift I’d intended as a reminder of our time together in Cuixmala. One final piece of paradise.

But then I realised that I didn’t want to just give you a memory or a souvenir as we flew back to reality. I wanted to make you a promise.

“Tell you what,” I said. “How about I meet you there... in a year’s time?”

You laughed. “Oh, we’re doing this again, are we?”

I pulled you in at the waist. “I’m serious. A year from now. Wherever you want to go, we’ll both go.”

You stared at me, my subtext clear:

_A year from now, I’ll still be around._

But we let it go unspoken between us. Some things are too sacred for speaking. “Schedules allowing… okay. Yes. Of course.”

I kissed you, briefly but passionately, already enthused and heady from this escapade we were yet to take. In my head, I was already doing the calculations, blocking out the month, thinking of places where I could take you.

That silver cuff I bought from the airport kiosk remains untouched in my carry-on. I’m still waiting for the right time to take it out. On another trip, perhaps, or maybe even our next foray into Mexico - a reminder of paradise, but also, that I will chase night skies and timezones and horizons with you, always.

But for now, I’ll stare at the empty space on your wrist, imagine it adorned by all the invisible marks of our adventures - all that have been, and all that are to come.

Until then, I’ll wait for us to fly out again, and I’ll hold fast to you —

My own little piece of paradise.

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank you, as always, for giving this a chance, for reading it. In the last few weeks, I've become more aware of just how much and how often my SH fics have been read, and, coming from someone who would've been happy to just have twenty people enjoy "Tomorrow", I am truly overwhelmed, and grateful for every reader.
> 
> This was only meant to be a drabble, but it became so much more as I yearned to craft something beautiful for the SH fandom.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Love, paperlesscrown xx


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